1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to call hold queues. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to estimating hold queue wait times and displaying factors affecting hold queue wait times to callers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many companies provide telephone-based access to help staff, sales personnel, representatives, and automated menus. Where high telephone call traffic is typical in telephone access to a company's representatives, a PBX system receives the call and distributes the call to an automatic call distributor (ACD). ACDs are often employed to provide an even and systematic distribution of incoming calls to multiple representatives. In particular, ACDs typically provide incoming calls with a direct connection to an available representative until all representatives are busy. Then, calling parties are placed in a call queue, and selectively connected to a representative once a representative comes available.
Call queues may cause frustration and ill will of consumers towards a company, particularly where excessively long waits, full queues and accidental disconnects are encountered. One way to alleviate some of the frustration associated with call queues is by alerting callers to a current position within the call queue and an estimated hold time.
For example, a call queue system may inform callers waiting in a call hold queue of the average wait time for callers in the hold queue through a voice announcement. However, the average wait time for callers in a hold queue only indicates a generic time averaged across callers within a particular time period.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for publishing call queue information to each caller that will aid each caller in understanding the relative position of each caller within a call queue. Further, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for providing an estimation of an expected wait time for each individual caller in a call queue.